For the Warriors, everything’s still tied up in the Monta Ellis Indecision

The funniest thing (for me) about writing this post now is that this actually was the headline for a post I was preparing many months ago, before the lockout, and never got around to finishing.

And still: Monta, Monta, Monta. Always with the Warriors, the future revolves around The Monta Decision.

Or, actually, is delayed and obscured by the Monta Indecision.

I’m finishing the post now, as agents talk to teams and deals are discussed and rumors float through the ionisphere leading up to the official Dec. 9 delayed start of free agency.

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With the Warriors, it’s still the same basic story: The Warriors want to make dramatic improvements but keep running into the same wall–can they do this with Monta Ellis on the roster?

They love Ellis’ scoring and heart and love that Warriors fans love Ellis. Yes, the Warriors could get worse for a while without Ellis scoring at such a high rate.

But they aren’t a playoff team as constructed around Ellis, or if everything works out, they top out as a No. 8 seed, and that’s not enough.

Yes, Mark Jackson desperately wants to coach Ellis. Jackson has made a point of reaching out to tell Ellis that the Warriors aren’t trading him.

And Lacob doesn’t want to move Ellis unless he gets a killer deal–for matching or superior talent and lesser dollars.

But those great deals are almost impossible to pull off, especially with a small shooting guard as the centerpiece of the talks.

And yet… To get much better, the GSWs will probably have to tear apart some of the aspects most beloved by their owner and front office, and that means dispatching either ultra-beloved David Lee or mostly-beloved Ellis.

–They could use the new amnesty clause to drop Lee or Andris Biedrins and get a huge salary-cap windfall and really add something to Ellis, but they’re not doing either thing.

–They like Lee too much to pay him to play somewhere else; and they believe Biedrins’ career is revive-able.

–If they’re not going to jettison Lee or Biedrins, then the thing they don’t want to admit, but might have to, is that the only way to get better is to move Ellis.

–Jerry West probably understands this and has been suggesting this from the moment he was hired to the exec board.

–But it’s still a hard sell to Lacob and Peter Guber, who are facing the Monta Indecision for the second time as owners. (First time was the February trade deadline. When they did little.)

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Because Stephen Curry is the other guard, and Ellis and Curry are a bit redundant as two smallish, offensive-minded, ball-dominant guards, and because Curry is younger and more of a passer, it always points to Ellis as the main focus of trade possibilities.

So… should the Warriors trade Ellis, what can they get if they do, and what are they stuck with if they don’t?

Yes, I do believe I’ve written this before, a time or two.

By the way, I wrote a lot of this back in March, after the February deadline lapsed with a lot of GSW lead up but no big deals, and my talk with co-owner Joe Lacob at that time remains our clearest line into Lacob’s thinking I can provide.

Here’s my very pointed conversation with him, in which he defends Lee, explains why the Warriors needed to hold onto Ellis, and why everybody should just wait, the big deal is coming, just you wait.

Still waiting. Same situation. Same indecision. They’ll only move Ellis if they get the killer deal, and the killer deal, as of yet, is not there.

I understood (but did not agree with) Lacob’s reasoning then and I understand it now–you don’t make a move just to make a move.

But it does get wearying for the Warriors to talk about big moves and yet remain stolidly in place.

It’s the same excuse and the Warriors are stuck in the same situation, unless they can get extremely creative in the next few days and add something special to this core that Lacob, Jackson and Larry Riley like so much.

At some point, maybe in a few days, it might behoove the Warriors to start looking at Ellis options that aren’t obvious PR wins.

They might not be able to get a young star back, but maybe they can get a youngish starting forward who plays defense, a rugged back-up center and a No. 1 pick. (Maybe from Chicago?)

Maybe they can go for volume, not star quality, and adjust the balance of the roster to build around Curry.

Anyway, Lacob has many times blamed the media for speculation about the Warriors’ talks to possibly move Ellis.

I would guess he’s blaming ESPN’s Ric Bucher for today’s report that the GSWs have talked to Memphis, with the Warriors mentioning Ellis-for-Rudy Gay being the central part of those discussions.

Sure, all the media’s fault, once again. (I don’t expect that deal to happen–Gay is too valuable to the Grizzlies at this point. But with West’s ties to Memphis and his appreciation to Gay, and Ellis’ ties to Memphis, I wouldn’t be shocked if we hear more about the two teams fiddling with the core of this conversation.)

The Warriors should be doing exactly what Bucher says they’re doing–checking around to gauge Ellis’ value for the moment Lacob might want to pull the trigger.

You have to know what you can get before deciding to do anything as major as moving Ellis. I acknowledge there are risks to giving up such prolific scorer. I understand he has meant a lot to this team, and still does.

If the Warriors keep waiting, however, they’ll field the same team with the same weaknesses for yet another waiting period, and then they’ll get to next offseason and still be dazed by Monta Indecision.